Jane Goodall

Moreover, we know that in different parts of Africa, wherever chimps have been studied, there are completely different tool-using behaviors.

And because it seems that these patterns are passed from one generation to the next through observation, imitation, and practice, that is a definition of human culture.

What we find is that over these 40-odd years that I and others have been studying chimpanzees and the other great apes, and as I say, other mammals with complex brains and social systems, we have found that after all, there isn't a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.

It's a very wuzzy line.

It's getting wuzzier all the time as we find animals doing things that we, in our arrogance, used to think was just human.

The chimps, there's no time to discuss their fascinating lives, but they have this long childhood, five years of suckling and sleeping with the mother, and then another three, four or five years of emotional dependence on her even when the next child is born.

The importance of learning in that time when behavior is flexible and there's an awful lot to learn in chimpanzee society.

the long-term affectionate supportive bonds that develop throughout this long childhood with the mother, with the brothers and sisters, and which can last through a lifetime which may be up to 60 years.

They can actually live longer than 60 in captivity, so we've only done 40 years in the wild so far.

We find chimps are capable of true compassion and altruism.

We find in their non-verbal communication, this is very rich, they have a lot of sounds which they use in different circumstances, but they also use touch, posture, gesture.

And what do they do?

They kiss, they embrace, they hold hands, they pat one another on the back, they swagger, they shake their fist.

The kind of things that we do

and they do them in the same kind of context.

They have very sophisticated cooperation.

Sometimes they hunt, not that often, but when they hunt they show sophisticated cooperation and they share the prey.

We find that

They show emotions similar to, maybe sometimes the same, as those that we describe in ourselves as happiness, sadness, fear, despair.

They know mental as well as physical suffering, and I don't have time to go into the information that would prove some of these things to you, save to say that there are very bright students in the best universities studying emotions in animals, studying personalities in animals.